Another Way
by Lucy H
Summary: It’s negative. Rachel never realised how much she hated change. [work in progress]
1. Prologue

Title: Another Way

Fandom: Friends

Rating: PG-13

Word count: 680

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Summary: "It's negative." Rachel never realised how much she hated change.

**Prologue**

"It's negative."

Up until she heard those words, Rachel Green had truly believed that the most beautiful words in the world were "I love you", words that meant she was wanted and safe; words that meant someone cared. But now she realised that no, the most beautiful, wonderful, wanted, words were telling her that her life didn't have to change so dramatically.

"Oh, thank god." She felt tears welling up in her eyes as she smiled. "Thank you, Phoebe. Oh, this is… this is fantastic." She hadn't realised how much she had been hoping that the result would magically change, that she wouldn't have to go through with this.

"Negative?" Monica repeated.

"Uh…"

Hearing the strained tone in Phoebe's voice, Rachel looked up. "Pheebs?"

She could tell that Phoebe was stalling for time. "I… oh, Rach."

"Phoebe, you said it was negative." Her hands were instinctively reaching out in front of her, wanting to push away the image of a positive pregnancy test, a sonogram, a ballooning belly, a labour room… a mother and a baby.

Phoebe looked at the floor. "I thought you wanted it… I thought, if you thought hard enough, you'd want a b—"

"No." The word was almost shouted; there was enough force to stop Phoebe from saying any more. "Don't. Don't say it."

She felt Monica's arms encircle her. "Oh, sweetie…"

"I never meant for this to happen," Rachel mumbled, burying her face in Monica's shoulder. "I don't… I don't want it to be happening." She felt Monica's hands stroke warm patterns on her back.

"It'll be okay, Rach." Monica's voice was a little quieter than normal, and Rachel cursed herself inwardly. Of course _Monica_ wouldn't understand. _Monica_ was married; _Monica_ wanted babies. _Monica_ always had.

With an effort, she pulled herself away from Monica, and turned to face Phoebe. "So… it's not negative?"

In response, Phoebe simply held out the stick, and Rachel saw, for herself, the sign that she had been dreading.

"Positive then," she stated, dully.

"I'm so sorry, Rach," Phoebe half-whispered.

Rachel lifted her head to look at her friend. "It's not like _you_ got me into this state, is it? It's not like you were there, egging us on. So don't say that." She heard the sharp words with regret, and bit her lip. "I'm… I'm sorry. That was too harsh."

"It's okay." Phoebe stepped towards her, and gently clasped her hand. "We'll get through this, you know. All of us. Me, Mon, Joey, Chandler, Ross… we're all going to be there for you."

"I… no." Rachel tore her hand away from Phoebe, and moved away. "You can't tell them. This is… it's between us. Just us."

"But you're going to get bigger… you're going to have a baby, Rach," Monica said softly.

"I… I don't have to." She couldn't look either of them in the eyes any longer, not these friends who had loved her, but who had both suffered for children. It was obvious that Phoebe still felt the loss of the triplets; even though she had been prepared to give them up, she had still lost them. Rachel had seen the look in her friend's eyes when she'd seen babies and young children recently. She wanted, so badly, to have had those children. Monica, she knew, still wondered about the baby she had nearly conceived all those years ago.

They didn't, they couldn't, understand.

"What?" Phoebe's voice was deceptively light.

"I don't _have_ to have a baby, Pheebs." Rachel chanced a look at her friend, and saw, instead of the glare she had been expecting, an expression of confusion. How could they not understand?

"But you're pregnant," Monica said helplessly.

"Pregnancy doesn't have to end in a baby." She stepped backwards again and felt for the doorknob. "I never wanted this to happen."

As she ran from them, the last thing she heard was Phoebe calling after her.


	2. Chapter 1

Title: Another Way – Chapter 1

Fandom: Friends

Rating: PG-13

Word count: 1,801

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Summary: "It's negative." Rachel never realised how much she hated change.

**Chapter One**

In movies, people can run for miles without getting tired. Rachel was gasping and clutching her side by the time that she'd made it down one corridor. Cursing under her breath, she leant against a wall, doubled over, as she tried to catch her breath.

Her breath came in wheezes and gasps, and she noted briefly how unfit she was. She'd stopped going running when she'd moved in with Joey, and, in hindsight, that was a mistake. And, thinking of mistakes…

She'd never understood how people could refer to a pregnancy as "an accident". You heard it called that all the time really: Katy had _had an accident_ but got it sorted out, Ella's _little accident_ was three months old now, Megan was the _best accident_ her mom ever had. And Rachel had always thought, my god, how could they say that. She'd thought, wow, you'd have to be pretty stupid to have an accident like that. She'd thought, I'm glad it's not my responsibility.

And now it was.

Her hand was pressed against her side, trying to block out the stitch that running had given her. Looking at her hand, she slowly slid it down a few inches, letting it rest on her abdomen.

There was something in there.

Something. That was the safest word for it. _Foetus_, _zygote_, _embryo_, they sounded too clinical. Besides, they didn't all mean the same thing. She was fairly sure that there were different ones for different stages of pregnancy.

_Pregnancy_. That was another taboo word.

The worst word of all? She didn't let her mind dwell on it. It meant the thing in a pram, in a nursery, something that would grow up to be a person. It meant what she wasn't ready for, what she didn't want, and what she wasn't going to have.

Almost of its own accord, her hand drew back from her abdomen, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.

Straightening up, she leant her head against the wall for a moment, wondering why Phoebe and Monica hadn't followed her. Were they that disgusted by her reaction? She felt a pang of shame at that thought, so she tried to push it out of her head before it took over and she began to cry.

Instead, she walked, very deliberately, away. She walked down two more corridors, three flights of stairs, four streets. And then, not knowing what else to do, she stopped. She didn't feel ready to go home, yet she didn't feel the need to go back to the wedding either. Instead, she walked into the nearest bar that she could find.

Swinging herself onto a high barstool, ignoring the looks her dress was attracting, she fumbled in her purse for a moment before pushing a twenty across the bar. "How much would that get me?"

The waitress, a girl of no more than twenty-five, ran a hand through her eccentrically purple hair. "Too much."

Rachel nodded. "Sounds good. Gimme it."

"Beer? Wine? Vodka?" The girl looked dubious.

"Surprise me."

Three glasses later, Rachel cracked a smile. "I'm Rachel," she told the girl. "You?"

"Meg." She picked up Rachel's latest empty glass. "I can take a guess at the answer, but… want another?"

"And then some." Rachel idly kicked the bar as she waited for Meg to return her glass. "So… why do you work here, Meg?"

She watched Meg scrunch up her nose as she thought. "I need something to put me through college, I suppose. And then, y'know, there's all the _fantastic_ people I get to meet," she added, with an ironic smile, as she passed a vodka shot to Rachel.

Rachel downed it in one. "Ahh," she breathed, looking deep into the glass for a moment. Her reflection peered back at her, distorted and wet. "I work at Ralph Lauren," she told Meg. "Men's fashions."

"Great."

"It is. It's what I've wanted all my life." You have to be a special kind of drunk to spill your life story to a stranger, Rachel had always thought. She'd never understood the characters in the soaps who would do that. And suddenly, she'd… become that? It didn't make sense.

"Cool." Meg looked up. "So, why are you here looking so upset?"

Rachel looked down at the bar. Someone had carved their initials into it.

There had been an afternoon with Ross, a picnic, somewhere out of the city. She remembered his arms around her, his taste on her lips, his eyes in the summer sun.

Pouring champagne into each other's mouths, lying back on a blanket, feeling the dry grass underneath it. Rolling over to face each other, knowing that they were as one.

Feeling her hand wander gently up his leg, watching his agonised expression. Giggling.

RG♥RG spelled with spilt M&Ms – a mistake turned beautiful.

"My best friend got married today." It was the safest answer.

"Oh." Meg digested that, before asking, "I guess you were maid of honour?"

"Uh huh."

"So… why'd you walk out on it?" It was an understandable question, but that was all it took to make Rachel cry.

She felt in her purse for a tissue, glad that Monica had chosen dresses with matching purses. Thinking of Monica made a fresh sob catch in her throat. "I walked out on her…" She gulped, leaning her head against her hand.

Meg had the awkward look of a child seeing an adult crying and being unsure of what to do. "I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry. I just wondered."

Rachel breathed deeply, before replying. "It's okay. I just… I had some bad news. I had to get out of there before I ruined her day." She stood up. "And I should probably go now."

"Do you want me to call you a cab?" Meg offered. "I don't think you should go walking anywhere in that condition."

"Condition?" Rachel stumbled in her shock, before realising that Meg was referring to her sobriety – or lack of it. "Oh, yeah. I'm okay."

"If you're sure." Meg looked doubtful. "Good luck, Rachel."

Rachel didn't reply. She didn't even look back.

It was better to be alone, she reflected. Much, much better. If she was alone, then she didn't have to talk, pretend that she was feeling better than she was. She didn't have to answer questions about what was the matter. She felt that, had Meg pushed her any more, pushed her to confront what was happening to her, she would have screamed.

She didn't know what she would have screamed. It would have been incoherent. It would have been a plea, a prayer, for someone to take pity on her, to change her situation. _Let it have been Monica's test after all_, she would have prayed. _Let this just be a dream_. And she would have prayed to all the gods that she could think of.

It was nearly three in the morning when she forced herself to go home. It just felt much too hard to have to go home to the place where it had all begun.

As she pushed the door open, she heard voices. Phoebe and Joey were sitting at the counter, discussing something furiously.

"Joseph Tribbiani, it is _none_ of your business!" Phoebe snapped, before breaking off as she saw the door open. She leapt up from her stool, knocking it over in the process, and bit her lip as she saw Rachel. "Oh god, oh Rachel… are you okay?"

Rachel shrugged, and wordlessly walked past them. She flung her purse in the general direction of her bedroom, before throwing herself down on the sofa.

"I've been so worried," Phoebe said, softly.

"No need." Rachel examined a broken nail on her hand, feigning nonchalance. "I'm fine. It's all fine."

"I don't think it is," Phoebe replied.

"What's the matter?" Joey asked, crouching down in front of her. "Phoebe won't tell me, but Rach… you know I care about you, right? You know I don't want you to be hurting; I'm your friend. I want to help you."

"No one can help me." _That's a lie_, said a little voice inside her head. _Anyone could help you; you're just not letting them._

"It's never _that_ bad," Phoebe told her, a slightly stern tone in her voice. "It's not like you're dying, Rachel."

Rachel's head shot up. "Stop it."

Joey looked uncertainly between the two. "Do you, uh, do you want me to go?"

"No, Joe, it's fine. Stay." Rachel reached out and grabbed his hand. "I'm fine, honestly." She looked over at Phoebe. "It's just, oh God, Pheebs, I've spent seven years getting to where I am in my life, I've finally got it all, and then… this happened."

"It's a new challenge." Phoebe smiled, but Rachel could tell that it was forced.

"It's not one I _want_." Rachel sighed. "I like my independence, y'know? That's always been what I wanted – that's why I left Barry, it's why I came out here… and I don't want to lose that."

Joey was nodding slightly to himself, and Rachel, looking at him, knew that he'd figured it out. Dim as he may have seemed, he wasn't stupid. "You're pregnant?" he asked, gently, and Phoebe nodded in response.

Rachel looked down at her hands. "I don't know what to do, guys. It's just, it's so scary, and so _much_, y'know?"

"Whose, uh, whose is it?" Joey asked, tentatively.

"I'm not sure I should say… I should probably tell _him_ first." Rachel bit her lip. "But oh God, I don't want to. What if he wants me to… to have it?"

"Then don't." Before Rachel knew what was happening, Phoebe was next to her on the couch, and had put an arm around her. "Rach, sweetie, this is _your_ responsibility, _your_ choice… no one else's."

Joey nodded, and sat down on the other side. "It's your body." He thought for a moment. "I know that if a woman I'd been with told me she was pregnant, I'd leave it up to her to decide what to do. Even if I wanted… it, it wouldn't be up to me, because I wouldn't be the one to carry it for nine months or give birth to it or breastfeed or whatever." He looked closely at Rachel, obviously checking to see whether he'd gone too far.

"You're just a nice guy, Joe." Rachel leant her head on his shoulder, and smiled slightly as Phoebe gently moved her legs onto her lap, before starting to massage her feet. "Thanks, you guys. I don't know what I'd do without you."


End file.
